Halil the Pedlar eBook

“This letter deserves to be thrown into the
fire,” said Ispirizade, and into the fire he
threw it, there and then, and thereupon lay down to
sleep with a good conscience.

The following day was Thursday, the 28th September.
On that very day, twelve months before, the Sultan’s
eleven-year-old son had died. The day was therefore
kept as a solemn day of mourning, and a general cessation
of martial exercises throughout the host was proclaimed
by a flourish of trumpets.

To many of the commanders this day of rest was a season
of strict observance. The Aga of the Janissaries
withdrew to his kiosk; the Kapudan Pasha had himself
rowed through the canal to his country house at Chengelkoei,
having just received from a Dutch merchant a very
handsome assortment of tulip-bulbs, which he wanted
to plant out with his own hands; the Reis-Effendi
hastened to his summer residence, beside the Sweet
Waters, to take leave of his odalisks for the twentieth
time at least; and the Kiaja returned to Stambul.
Each of them strictly observed the day—­in
his own peculiar manner.

But Fate had prepared for the people at large a very
different sort of observance.

Early in the morning, at sunrise, seventeen Janissaries
were standing in front of the mosque of Bajazid with
Halil Patrona at their head.

In the hand of each one of them was a naked sword,
and in their midst stood Musli holding aloft the half-moon
banner.

The people made way before them, and allowed Patrona
to ascend the steps of the mosque, and when the blast
of the alarm-horns had subsided, the clear penetrating
voice of the ex-pedlar was distinctly audible from
end to end of the great kalan square in front of him.

“Mussulmans!” he cried, “you have
duties, yes, duties laid upon you by our sacred law.
We are being ruined by traitors. Fugitives from
the host have brought us the tidings that the army
of Kueprilizade has been scattered to the winds; four
thousand horses and six hundred camels, laden with
provisions, have been captured by the Persians; the
general himself has fled to Erivan, and the provinces
of Hamadan and Kermanshan are once more in the possession
of the enemy. And all this is going on while
the Grand Vizier and the Chief Mufti have been arranging
Lantern Feasts, Processions of Palms and Illuminations
in the streets of Stambul instead of making ready
the host to go to the assistance of the valiant Kueprilizade!
Our brethren are sent to the shambles, we hear their
cries, we see their banners falter and fall into the
enemy’s hands, and we are not suffered to fly
to their assistance, though we stand here with drawn
swords in our hands. There is treachery—­treachery
against Allah and His Prophet! Therefore, let
every true believer forsake immediately his handiwork,
cast his awl, his hammer, and his plane aside, and
seize his sword instead; let him close his booth and
rally beneath our standard!”